Aural journey

Feeling stifled in my inactivity, my tenacious cold not giving an inch. I need to get out in the air, away from everything. My life feels stagnant today, like I haven't left the house in far too long. So I am, at the very least, taking advantage of my surroundings. And off I go....

Always it takes a few minutes to get over the feeling of unfamiliarity. The language is not mine. I don't comprehend what he is saying as he sings. But as I sit, immersed in reading and drinking my too-strong coffee, the unfamiliar words disappear, melding with the rhythm and the music until I forget my newspaper... I close my eyes with the barely conscious realization that I have begun to move. I have started swaying and moving with the rhythms. Unlike the language, this is not unfamiliar; somehow these rhythms are as basic and comfortable as a heartbeat. They have always felt this close to me, like the movement of air in and out of my lungs playing against the thump thump of my heartbeat. I am transported away with the musical strains filling the room, filling my head; transported away on my musical magic carpet.

As I listen I can almost feel the sun on my face, the almost oppressive dryness in the air. I can see the people in their brightly coloured clothes, dancing to these same rhythms until the sand under their feet creates dust clouds that obscure them from view. I have never really been there. Only in dreams and pictures have I seen the savannah as it becomes the desert. But these rhythms take me there. As I dance to these essential rhythms, eyes closed, listening to the voices in song that somehow now become clear in their meaning, even without comprehending the words. These voices take me there.

Someday I will go there and join in the songs and the dance. I will truly feel the sun on my face. Until then, I will listen often, and be transported.